Paris Peace Accords

The Paris Peace Accords was a peace treaty signed on 27 January 1973, establishing a shor-tlived peace in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The treaty was negotiated chiefly between Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger, and was signed by representatives of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, the Viet Cong provisional government of South Vietnam, and the United States. After more than four years of negotiations, begun after the Tet Offensive in 1968 and frequently interrupted by US bombing offensives, it provided for the withdrawal of US troops and thus an end to direct US military involvement. In return, democratic elections were to be held in South Vietnam in order to end the rivalry between the government of Nguyen Van Thieu and the communist Viet Cong. Nguyen Van Thieu rejected the treaty, however, and with US assistance continued to defy the Viet Cong and the Vietnam People's Army. Peace was enforced only in a final offensive of the People's Army, which led to the collapse of Nguyen's regime on 30 April 1975.